


Better Love

by octaviamatilda



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: After the Fall, Anal Sex, Approaches angst at certain moments, But you're in the Hannibal fandom so..., Emotions, Fingering, Kissing, Love, M/M, Post-Finale, Rimming, references to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5040103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaviamatilda/pseuds/octaviamatilda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are both changed, and both the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Love

“The phoenix riddle hath more wit/By us; we two being one, are it.”  
John Donne, The Canonization

The cabin was a dark space for both of them; quiet, held in harness by tall thin trees and just removed from the dull roar of the ocean. Hannibal cared little were he never to set his toes in the wet grit of a beach but once again in his life. And he didn’t truly expect that he would see his twilight years. The ocean had been the font of their rebirth, but when he choked up the freezing Atlantic from his lungs he hoped at no time to feel its sting again. He had half dragged, half carried Will, insensate and scarcely breathing, from the dark tidal flow up through rocky terrain and away from open space. The woods had swallowed them two months past, and while they laid low on their bunks and winced at their wounds, they had no desire to emerge.

Hannibal had tended to himself; pouring clear pure alcohol into the gaping bullet hole and crying out in agony, tears stripping through the older salt of the sea still on his skin. Will wasn’t conscious. He would not know how Hannibal had wept. He had staunched the worst of the blood trickling from Will’s perforated body before he saw to himself, but performing delicate stitch work on his friend would be impossible with hands that trembled with the shock of serious trauma. Even though Will could not struggle against the tug of the thread, Hannibal would do more harm than good. Eventually, he settled Will back into clean sheets to allow him sleep for as long as his body needed. It would likely be 24 hours at the least. Hannibal could only watch in patience, sitting in silence as the watcher at the gate.

Now, they stepped lightly around each other, with the uncertainty of that time before. When Will had been negotiating his way through to the doctor, languishing in prison; when he began to know what he was doing in letting himself see and be seen in his most extreme form. When his empathy had wrapped around them both, and neither had been sure if their horns locked together in the terror of a losing fight or the delight of violence that created them. They would die and rise the same, though they couldn’t know it then. Even so, months after they had fallen from the world, they chafed against each other in frustration. Hannibal was practically fighting fit and with impressive speed; he was weaker in will than anything else. More than a few times, he had almost raised his hand to his friend in violence, believing that Will would prefer that to a touch laid on him in tenderness. Will understood the desire of bloodshed, but desire for its own sake? Hannibal was, in forbearance, only medical and methodical; checking wounds and changing dressings and once re-stitching while Will swore like a dockyard worker and clutched at the bedding. Hannibal had disappeared afterwards to chop wood and nearly lost several fingers in the impotent rage he let loose on the trees.

***********

Every time Hannibal had stripped soiled bandages from his body, prodded with cool fingers and run hands over his brow to check for fever, Will had resolutely held himself in stillness. He hoped it appeared as the obeisance of a trusting patient. He would not lament the loss of the sting, and the never ending ache, of his healing wounds as they brought him back to wholeness again; he would miss the pretext that allowed Hannibal to place firms hands on his skin. It occurred to Will that the great absurdity of their relationship was that their bond, as inimitably unique as it was, still functioned, and failed, on the same basis as everyone else’s. Neither of them were psychic. It didn’t need saying that they loved each other; utterly and to the point that it cost the other to breathe a breath that wasn’t his, and to die when the other’s heart stopped beating in his chest. But beyond that, nothing had passed between them.

Will had wondered, out by the well as he collected water, whether sex would add anything to their relationship, or perhaps take something from it. He wondered, as he hovered over the low stove and focussed to excess on their frying fish, whether gender mattered either. Hannibal had been humming under his breath, sat at the small table while using his whetstone on the dulled blades that saw too much use, and paying attention to them in a manner affected to ignore Will. Hannibal did not possess Will’s empathic abilities but he was certain the doctor knew the texture of every finer, and every worse, emotion that passed between them. Perhaps he could smell it; the sour discomfort that hung in the air around them. Certainly, the ocean had not washed everything of the old Will Graham away, to be dissolved into there-and-gone sea foam. Will could feel, like a shark sensing the edges of a sand bank, that he was skirting the edges of something that held danger. Hannibal was working extraordinarily hard to display restraint. Whether it was a courtesy to Will, and only an agony to Hannibal himself, he couldn’t quite determine. 

Will stopped debating, in his bunk that night, whether it was of any consequence that Hannibal was a man. Sleep had eluded him for almost three hours, but he had not risen, in fear and half hope, that if he wandered from his small room he might find Hannibal sitting up also. His hand, tight and warm around his hard cock, moved up and down beneath the thin sheet. He drew to himself the best, the most tactile, memories he possessed of Hannibal. Fingers ghosting over his ribs to check for bruises and breaks; there had, miraculously, been none to find. Instead, the feeling of the doctor’s hands, licenced to roam but dragging slowly for all the wrong reasons, had set Will’s skin to gooseflesh. It cannot have gone unnoticed; Hannibal looked as calm as ever. Better yet: Will’s first shower once he had been capable of standing on his own, albeit with something of a wobble. The steam and the heat of the shower had been too much and Will had nearly fainted; he called out to Hannibal as the weakness crept into his limbs. The doctor had burst into the tiny bathroom, dashing under the stream of water and uncaring for the soaking that his clothes got. He braced Will from behind, one arm tucked under his diaphragm and the other feeling at his wrist for his pulse. The swoon had passed soon enough; Will had steadied himself with a hand splayed on the slippery tile wall and with Hannibal rigid at his back. For many beats more than was necessary, Hannibal remained as a pillar. Will, naked and wet. Fever-hot from the scald of the water and panting low under his breath. His cock had not stirred, not in the dizziness and embarrassment of it. Hannibal’s firm fingers had smoothed along the scar that bisected Will’s stomach. But there, and gone again, and then away from the shower cubicle to leave Will to his remaining privacy. 

Now, in his small bed, Will thought of it and blushed until there was heat in his ears. His hips arched as he tugged more roughly on himself, then moved to squeeze the leaking head of his cock to rein in the rising thing that clawed inside his abdomen. Will understood it all; he knew every sort of violence. The man, burdened or gifted, with the inability to shut out anything. He had carried it alone before Hannibal, and now he wore it lightly. He saw and understood the wholeness of their condition. What Hannibal had done to him, what he had given and what he had taken away. How he had helped peel the scales from Will’s eyes, and why he had crowed with delight for his pack mate to finally have found his fangs. And so too he felt everything: the vibration of Hannibal’s blood when Will had sliced through the Dragon, and the singing of his heart to see Will dripping with gore. But, oh, to place his hands on Will in fear of breaking his bones, in calm knowing love that didn’t rend flesh or seek for gross gain, just to give in a cognizance of everything in Will that was tender... 

All that was free of violence in him and had no desire to be touched by it; when would Hannibal lay his fingers on that soft, pulsing point? The thing in him that craved normalcy, that nurtured a fondness for helpless animals; the thing that only wanted to embrace Hannibal in acceptance, and to do so without diminishing either of them. To do this in knowing everything that they were. Despite every agony he had gifted him. Despite every scar and loss. He wanted a better love, and he thought of it settling heavy over him as he pumped faster and gave a loud gasp.

*********************

Hunched at the small table in the shared living space, Hannibal sat in quietude. Stillness looked to be his natural disposition; the dark warmth of the night, well past the midnight hour now, was comfort to him. He barely seemed to breathe. He tried to think of their next move, where they might go from this coast to the furthest to evade capture, what might be done about acquiring new passports, and a million other practical things that put his mind to use that it might not linger on Will too long. It was a sore sweetness that grew more painful by the day. Rarely did he experience doubt, but what was left in the great ashes of his old life, pink and new and a chronicle of everything he desired, was Will. The glass of his blue eyes and the acres of perfectly scarred skin was what he wanted to know; his mind he had had long ago. Under his doctor’s hands, Will breathed in passive valour and only ungritted his teeth when Hannibal let him be once more. And Hannibal knew his own breaking heart was grown greedy. 

He shook away the thought. Stood from the table to find a tumbler near the sink and to take a long draft of cold water. As he turned the tap off, he heard a cry issue, muffled but unmistakeable, from Will’s room. The door wasn’t properly closed and the meanest chink of silver showed around the edges. Another noise, more like a shout this time, and Hannibal strode for the door. Perhaps Will was in the grip of a nightmare; he still had them and Hannibal felt a disgusting sort of infamy in knowing he continued to be the cause of many. He pushed it open quietly and nearly stumbled back at what he saw. Such advantage as the view provided, barely illuminated by scant moonlight, almost disappeared with the cramp of heat in his belly that forced his eyes closed but briefly. Will was on his front, his dark head buried in the pillow and turned away from the door, his rear end curved up into the cool air. Hannibal could not clearly see his hand in its shadowed spot, but its rhythmic movements told him exactly where Will’s fingers were thrusting and curling. The profanity of it was staggering, though it kept him rooted to the spot. A madness came over him suddenly, in thinking that Will would not object if Hannibal sank down with him onto the bed and brought Will’s mouth, slack with pleasure, to his own. He must go. He remained where he stood.

‘Hannibal!’ 

Will called out, though the immediate grunt that followed half soaked into the bedding. He remained unaware of his watcher; he curved his spine convex then concave in a languorous roll as his fingers had grazed over his prostate, unexpected and wonderful in his discovery. His hand came up to his head, facing away, and disappeared from sight, though Hannibal heard the lewd sound of Will spitting into his hand. Trembling fingers, slicked with a wetness that Hannibal could scent on the air, came back to Will’s ass as he spread his knees a little wider. Two thick fingers dragged along his hole as Will groaned again, breathing heavy. 

‘Fuck, Hannibal, fuck...’

This was unbearable. He spoke quietly into the silvered dark.

‘Will?’

Hannibal heard the click of the swallow in Will’s throat, his whole frame suddenly gone still. The air was pregnant with the heat and smell of his warmed, throbbing body. For an interminable moment of fear, neither offered a word nor a movement. Then Will swiftly came to his feet, springing from his bed and standing before Hannibal with parted lips and eyes careless of shame. Hannibal braced himself for a punch; felt a perverse flicker of hope for one. None came. 

They stood, almost toe to toe. 

‘How long were you watching?’ It was a quiet question. No offense in it.

‘For a few moments.’ Hannibal swallowed. ‘A few moments longer than I ought to have done.’

Will smiled. Grinned.

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ve known me better than I knew myself for a long time, Hannibal. Now you know this. You may as well see all of me. Though, I’m not sure how I feel about you lingering in dark doorways, salivating, without my consent.’ Will laughed, impossibly, good-heartedly. 

The assumption that Will had made, that Hannibal wished to watch Will writhing on his bed as he finger fucked himself, and the grace with which he accepted such an unforgivable intrusion, made Hannibal’s breath pass from him in a rush. Will had looked beautiful, and he gave so much of himself to Hannibal that he wondered that such an expansion of generosity hadn’t beaten Will to a thinness. He seemed limitless. 

What might Will Graham not do, that Hannibal Lecter would not marvel at.

‘It needs to be said, however. You have my utmost apologies. I never meant to…’

‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ He smiled. ‘I’d rather this; new purpose, new joy.’ 

Will stepped up close, immediately running warm hands up Hannibal’s arms, encouraging him to take what was offered, as if Hannibal suddenly sensed borders. Large palms and long fingers gently braced the sides of Will’s neck and finally, what glimmered into life on the cliff’s top took form between them. Hannibal laid dry, soft lips on Will’s. The timorous groan that came from the bare chest before him at once smothered and nourished Hannibal. 

‘Yes?’ He needed the grounding of a final assurance.

‘Yes.’ Will smirked and returned the kiss with greater strength, biting on Hannibal’s full lip damp between his teeth. ‘Come on. Ruin me. I’ve thought about it often enough.’  
Will took several sure steps backwards, falling onto the bed behind him and dragging Hannibal with him. The doctor ground down, pressing Will hard into the mattress and leaving no space for breath. Suffocation would do just perfectly now, as long as they could remain joined together from their toes to their panting mouths. 

‘What do you want?’ Will questioned, speaking in quiet huffs against Hannibal’s ear. ‘What have you thought about doing?’

The picture of Will, fingers buried inside himself as he cried Hannibal’s name, was still burning behind his eyes. 

‘As you were. On your knees.’ Hannibal whispered against Will’s temple, nosing the dark curls there. 

If Hannibal presumed upon Will’s dignity, the man beneath him showed no sign of it. He did not seem doubtful as he sat up, running hands up underneath Hannibal’s sleep shirt and through hair that thickened the higher he went. 

‘If voyeurism is your thing, we’re going to need to talk about it. But for now, get these off.’ Will tugged at Hannibal’s clothing. Strong hands came firm around Will’s wrists. 

‘Will. Please. Don’t be blithe about this. Are you certain?’ He searched for Will’s eyes and found them earnest, though a little crinkled with mirth. 

‘Truly. Everything for us, all of it, is here. There is nothing else for me. Haven’t you always known that? And whatever kind of monster I am, we are the same. If you love me, then love me. And when you hurt me, I’ll love you for that too.’ Will pushed up against the man straddling his waist, kissing deeply and seeking out his tongue to slide his own along it wetly. Hannibal’s gut tightened at the sensation; his cock, heavy with blood, twitched in his pants. 

Will turned to his front, checking once and feigning coy in true nerves, to see that Hannibal had moved to rid himself of clothes. He smiled at the brief glimpse of a broad furred chest and strong hips that lead down to a thick cock, shadowy and low with the weight of need between Hannibal’s thighs. Satisfied, Will cushioned his head on one arm, the other splayed out, relaxed, to his right. Behind him, Hannibal gently gripped his upturned hips and pulled them further to place that graceful dip in Will’s smooth back. Reverent fingertips drifted along the centre ridge of spine, then the cords of muscle either side. Warm lips laid kisses at the lower portion and blew a cool breeze along hot skin that immediately pebbled to delicate attention. 

Will hummed and shifted; brushing his blazing face along the soft hair of his own forearm, he grumbled when Hannibal’s fingers tightened on hip bones but his mouth moved no lower nor higher. 

‘Hannibal, please. I’ll burst if you don’t do something.’

A grin but no words. No assurances. Instead, he nosed flush along the curve of Will’s backside, humbled teeth nipping as he went. He heard a hitch of breath, stuck in the lean throat curved on the pillow, when he pulled apart his cheeks and licked a wet stripe along Will’s hole. He did it again, circling, slick and heated, around the sensitive pucker. Will’s hips almost bucked out of his grip; Hannibal caught him steady, blunt fingers digging into flesh.

‘Calm, Will. I can’t imagine how you’ll endure anything else if this is how you react to my tongue.’

‘Well don’t you sound like the cat that got the fucking canary…Jesus fuck!’

Hannibal settled into a stronger rhythm, sudden and relentless, alternately flicking his tongue at a fine point then making a broad swipe along soft damp skin that fluttered beneath his mouth. He had been conscientiously avoiding Will’s cock, hanging heavy between his legs, but now grasped it, running short nails back along its length from tip to root. Will grunted into the pillow, his fist tightening around the handful of bedding he had pulled from its moorings. Tension wracked his entire frame. The waking voice in Will’s throat began to shake free as his mouth grew slack with pleasure. Wordless cries, so bright in colour Hannibal could all but taste them, filled the darkness of the largely empty bedroom. The sweet quivering was coming to a pitch and Will’s shouts and moans jostled right alongside. The doctor hummed with pure pleasure, face soaked with saliva, stubble chafing on thin skin, and pulled away with reluctance. He thought, smiling, as he kissed his way up Will’s back, that he had formed a constant fancy for that, for his tongue on Will. But they both burned too hot to continue there. Whichever iteration, whoever would be inside whom, they needed it now. A final and ever new thread to connect them.  
Will, still panting into the pillow, gripped Hannibal’s hand tightly when it came to rest near his head. Hannibal dragged soft-swollen lips across a broad shoulder, leaning his weight heavily on Will’s prone form beneath him.

‘I want to try this with you, if you’ll let me.’ Hannibal murmured, accent low and thick, punctuating his suggestion with a roll of hips that pushed his rigid cock hard along the slicked line of Will’s ass. The dark curls shook on the white linen as Will nodded wordlessly and gave an answering rise, grinding back against greater size and strength; a length so blisteringly hot in the crevice of his ass that he could barely breathe.

‘I’m afraid we’ve nothing better to ease the way. Even I didn’t anticipate this.’ Hannibal mouthed at Will’s ear.

‘Like hell you didn’t.’

A huff of genuine laughter, followed by a doting kiss on the side of his neck, and Will was bidding Hannibal just to get on with it. 

‘But take it slowly, alright? I can’t guarantee I’m going to love this, at least the first time.’

A large hand came around to grasp Will’s cheek gently, pulling his torso half way around to meet Hannibal in a touching of foreheads, tongue pushing obscenely wet and hot into his mouth. The doctor’s cognac gaze caught and held Will’s own, brimming bean green over blue. He could hardly maintain the moment; Will’s empathy was beginning to swamp him. Feeling Hannibal’s desire and his own, a burning Gordian knot that was sealing with permanence at every breath they shared.

‘I only want to do this if you are absolutely certain that you do also. If you would rather do something else, or nothing at all, then you will find me a surprisingly biddable creature.’  
Hannibal gave a small smile, hope sitting in the edges of his mouth and amber stare. It scented the air around him. Will could practically taste it.

‘I want to do this. I want you.’ It was the first time he had actually said the words. A flare of something went across Hannibal’s features; in its sharp shadows Will thought he saw distress. Before another beat passed, Hannibal had flipped Will completely onto his back, breathless and bemused. Hannibal loomed over him. 

‘Say it again.’ His hand curved around the back of Will’s neck, nails scraping harshly. Will could only smile at his loss of control, at his needy display.

‘I want you.’ He enunciated each word carefully, somewhat surprised that the words didn’t leave him in a whisper.

Hannibal grinned back, showing his teeth in a way that made something in Will’s stomach clench. He had seen them, cruel and sharp, seize the Dragon’s throat and tear it to shreds. Stolen blood pouring down his chin and staining his neck, scornful of every possible decency. Will felt quite lost, to himself and to the world entire, when he drew the monster to him, kissing him frantically and throbbing between his legs to feel Hannibal’s strong canines with his tongue. If Hannibal ever turned those teeth on him, it would be his last legacy. Will would be his end, and Hannibal was his beginning.

‘Then you shall have me. I am ever yours, Will.’

Hannibal drew back a little, kept his eyes locked with Will’s as he spat into his hand and slicked his length, giving a few tugs more than necessary to gratify his own sense of showmanship. And Will certainly enjoyed the show. His gaze had dropped to Hannibal’s thick cock, lips parted and glistening.

Coming to him then, contracting together in the heat that was breeding between them, Hannibal nudged open Will’s thighs with his knees, running his hands along lightly haired skin at the juncture of leg and hip. He grazed fingers over Will’s still wet hole, sticky from Hannibal’s earlier idolatry. Will felt the head of Hannibal’s cock push against him and held his breath. Another large soothing hand came to grasp his waist, thumb brushing in encouragement. Will gave a small nod.

They joined in a sigh; Hannibal pushed slowly inside, the head of his cock just moving through into Will, passing the ring of muscle with no little resistance. Open mouthed with shock, Will threw his head back, panting to keep an even keel, to stop himself from pulling away. It burned, singing through him like he could never have expected; Will was no stranger to pain, he could bear it until it got better. He desperately wanted to. 

Clutching at Hannibal’s forearms, clawing at his skin as the weight inside him gently withdrew, then pushed further in, Will couldn’t help but cry out. 

‘Ah fuck, it hurts…’ 

A dangerous dissolution came over Hannibal at Will’s pained moan; every ounce of violence flowed from and he almost slumped with it. A sort of sorrowing pulled his brows together and he began to withdraw, but Will clung onto him. He locked his ankles at Hannibal’s lower back.

‘Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare.’ 

Hannibal groaned as the pull of Will’s legs forced him deeper inside; he was struggling to keep himself steady. The muscles in his back ached for greater movement, with the want to sink further into that impossibly tight heat. 

‘Keep going…just keep moving, please Hannibal.’ Will begged without shame, his whole being roaring with pain and sharp pleasure, his blood labouring in his veins to keep him from dizziness.

Hannibal did as he was bid: he snapped his hips, fucking into Will’s tense body, his hole pulsing and loosening by degrees as Hannibal kept up the punishing pace. Endless cries broke the air above his head; he lowered his face to Will’s neck and breathed harshly against damp skin, driving again and again and burying himself with a deep growling that he couldn’t contain. He was near senseless in his rutting and Will simply took it, unable to push up against Hannibal and unwilling to lose the severest bliss he had ever felt. The punch of Hannibal’s cock inside him suddenly hit on that knot of pleasure and he wailed, humiliated at the noise but blushing with the satisfaction of it. 

Hannibal pulled up to watch Will’s face, desperate to witness his own power in bringing him to a sob of abandoned dignity. He thrust in at just the right angle, sharper and newer and pitched just so; Will threw his head back into the pillow and near screamed for it, dark lashes fluttering closed and hands tearing at his own curls. Hannibal’s heart nearly shattered at the sight. He brought his hand to Will’s neck, wrapping around the column of his throat to feel the ripple and vibration as Hannibal repeated his movement inside the man beneath him and forced another cry from him. 

‘Christ, Hannibal. I think I’m gonna…’

Hannibal could feel his own orgasm, coiling tight low in his belly, building and building so that his hips began to stutter.

‘Look at me, look at me Will’, Hannibal panted low, his accent a rough graze on the air.

Another gasp caught sticky in Will’s throat. He opened his eyes with difficulty; the thinnest shiver of blue showed, pushed out by pupils blown black with roiling lust and a bitter edge of fear. Will couldn’t tell which belonged to Hannibal and which was his own, which limbs and breaths and grunts and tendrils of emotion originated in which body. The only certainty, waxing stronger and clearer as Hannibal kept thrusting, was the feeling in the cradle of his pelvis, winding to a near sharpness of tension. 

Bringing their heads together, one large hand gripping Will’s hair and the other pumping his cock, Hannibal leaned low and finally, finally, pushed Will over the edge. White hot spurts covered Will’s clenched stomach and tumbled down over Hannibal’s fingers, slicking his grip deliciously on over-sensitive flesh. In that moment, Hannibal thought he understood, even if just by the merest glimpse, what it felt like to be inside someone else’s skin, to be utterly at the mercy of your empathy for them. He knew Will, just then. Completely. His forehead came down to Will’s scarred shoulder, mouth hovering over the hard skin, and his hips gave one, two, thrusts and he spilled himself inside Will’s body with a harsh gasp. 

There were a few moments of harsh breathing, a happy stasis while they both came down. And then Hannibal had to move, slipping out of Will gently and lying down beside him. He would want his space. He hoped it would not become a gulf. Instead, Will turned to him, hand reaching out to brush Hannibal’s chest. 

‘I never said it properly, did I? Not without a conditional or a qualifier.’

Hannibal opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came fast enough. 

Will continued, smiling and licking dry lips. ‘I love you. I’m convinced you knew that. But I’ve never used the words, never uttered them cleanly. It needs to be said. I love you.’

He leaned across, barely brushing his mouth against Hannibal’s. He could only smile against Will’s lips.


End file.
